A survey by Sunbird AI, a non-profit organization that develops artificial intelligence systems for social impact in Africa has indicated that the use of Artificial Intelligence could be useful for government in planning the rural electrification program in different parts of the country.
The development was revealed by Dr. Ernest Mwebaze, the Executive Director for Sunbird AI in Kampala on Friday who said they have been working with German development agency, GIZ and the Ministry of Energy to develop machine learning based tool to help in rural electrification.
“We have been doing it in Lamwo as the prototype district. For each district in Lamwo, we set out to determine the best rural electrification strategy for it. We set out to ascertain whether solar, solar mini grid, solar home system mini hydro grid or biomass that can be best used by the village. This tool automatically takes these parameters into consideration for power demand and supply and generates recommendations for the most appropriate electrification option,” Dr.Mwebaze said.
He said the tool will inform decision on rural electrification strategies to be rolled out by the Ministry of Energy.
According to the Sunbird AI Executive Director, they used remote sensing data sets including open buildings and other data sets from the Ministry of Energy.
“We calculated where buildings are, where roads are, proximate of people, location and size of buildings, the vegetation available, how much solar energy or biomass are available and we came up with the most appropriate rural electrification strategy.”
He said they chose Lamwo district for the pilot study since it is best suited for rural electrification considering its proximity with South Sudan and the influx of refugees from the neighbouring country which ensures the need for a source of power.
“In Lamwo there has been some work of solar mini grids but also diverse number of people and different housing and social fabric. This was a good place to trial a rural electrification strategy.”
He noted that the idea behind this innovation is to scale it throughout the country but also worldwide.
“We are using remote sensing data which allows easy scaling. Once you have validated the use of the tool, for example in Lamwo, then it becomes easy to scale through Uganda and Africa.”
According to Dr. Brian Isabirye, the Commissioner in charge of the renewable energy department in the Ministry of Energy, the tool will help support government’s rural electrification efforts.
“We apply mini-grids in places where we think the immediate extension of the grid may not be financially viable. This pilot study has helped us get a proof of concept for us to understand that we have a platform that can help guide the distribution, siting and development of the min-grids,”Dr. Isabirye said.
He noted that ministry is ready to scale the tool throughout the country.
“We want to use this platform to show where else we can site these mini-grids and how best we can develop them to be productive. We actually need these kinds of applications to guide investors in green renewable energy. Data for decision support like this initiative is urgently needed by government. “